An introduction to the central claim running through all the work on this site: that the great mystical traditions of the West have always understood contemplation not as the pursuit of experience, but as a particular attunement to existence itself, to self, to others, to the world.

Three lectures tracing the key insights around which that understanding revolves: what everyday mysticism is, why it has become so unfamiliar, and why the connection between spiritual practice and ordinary life is not incidental but essential. A starting point, offered freely, for anyone curious enough to begin.